Marxism is an Anti-Moralism

Once I tutored a girl (junior in high school) in physics who was very bright but didn't like physics. The first couple of lessons I read the book aloud to her and she got it immediately, the third lesson I asked her what she liked to read and we talked for half an hour, the fourth lesson I told her that as long as she kept getting A's in physics by reading the book once in a while we could just chat every lesson. So that's what we did. She brought me various questions she had about things, and didn't tell her parents. I bummed her cigarettes sometimes but I felt bad about that.

One day this girl asked me (because her mother hadn't given her a satisfying answer) what exactly the difference was between socialism and communism. You can imagine how much fun I had explaining it, with historical examples and thought experiments and so forth. In the end she said something like: "I mean, they both seem pretty good to me. But, like, I don't know. People on welfare who just sit around and don't do anything all day, and other people have to work and pay for them. That doesn't seem fair."

And I could have said: "Yeah, but you getting to be literate and the apple of your father's eye when they don't get that, that's not fair either." Or I could have said: "Yeah, but most people don't want to sit around that way, they just don't have the opportunities you do." Which I think those things would have been true. But in the end I decided to say: "I think that maybe you just shouldn't care about that because maybe it just doesn't matter at all." And she asked why and I said, well, because society is rich enough to be leeched off of a little bit, so we don't have to go around measuring who deserves what and in what way and why, and deciding whether people are the deserving poor or lazy niggers, and even if it costs you not having air conditioning or a nice car wouldn't you just rather we all stopped wondering who deserved what all the time? Because the conservatives talk about it (I deserve my money and they don't! No fair!) and the liberals talk about it (I don't deserve my money and they do!) and the whole thing turns into this elaborate morality play when really, we could just all have enough food and a place to sleep and a little bit of free time and chill out. And I think that's why I'm a Marxist instead of a liberal, because instead of wanting to live in a society where everyone is treated fairly (according to their deserts) I want to live in a society which doesn't try or need to decide who deserves.

I don't know if she was convinced, but I at least surprised her.

I don't think feeling guilty is ever a political good, I think guilt is inseparable from liberal-progressive politics, and I think we as a society can do better than mere justice, whatever justice means.